Robert Siciliano discusses federal warnings that hacktivists like Anonymous and state-sponsored actors from China or Russia could develop the capability to disrupt the U.S. electrical grid. The segment covers known vulnerabilities, social engineering risks, and defensive efforts to protect critical infrastructure.
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Next to the warning that could really stop this rally in its tracks, and it's not gas prices, it's not Iran, it's not our own debt or the unfolding Greek tragedy, but it could be a potential hit to our entire power system, the country's electrical grid. Rich Edson in Washington with new hacking fears that's got the attention from Washington to Wall Street. Rich.
Hey, good evening, Liz. Officials say warnings within the federal government regarding an infamous hacking cooperative and its potential to hit the U.S. power grid. Anonymous is a collective known for recent attacks on government and corporate websites, mostly to protest crackdowns on illegal file sharing. Officials say the group is becoming more sophisticated and may soon have the ability to create a limited power outage in the U.S. One cybersecurity analyst says the scale of such a possible attack is mostly unknown.
The challenge is how do we understand a blackout in terms of difficulty to recover, uh, if the attackers have, in, have sort of been sophisticated enough to try to prevent the first through eighth possible ways that the technicians might seek to recover, then you can imagine a blackout really lasting for a very long time with incredibly calamitous effects.
Other analysts say utilities have defended against cyberattacks and dealt with blackouts in the past and assume any anonymous attack against the power grid could possibly be limited. Just don't know.
All right, thank you, thank you, Richard. So next up, cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano says this threat is very real It's a real and present danger. So Robert, what we have here is top military officials, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a director, the director of the National Security Agency, reportedly warning the White House and warning Congress about this threat from the hacktivist group Anonymous. And it's not threats coming from, you know, North Korea or Iran. It's Anonymous doing it. Is this a serious threat that we should take seriously?
Any threat should be taken seriously. When a threat goes from defacing public websites to hacking into email to disrupting a critical infrastructure such as the internet, that goes beyond the fun and games and the shaming to one that needs to be taken seriously.
All right, here's the deal. The issue is, according to what we've been hearing here at Fox business, is that this internet group— excuse me, this hacktivist group threatened to shut down the internet March 31st. Now we know, we know that the nation's power grid has a lot of backup systems and a lot of firewalls to stop hacks that have been coming in, and it's been fending it off valiantly and successfully. Now the issue that is, I think, concerning the cyber experts out there, sir, is this: that some foreign government could outsource some kind of malware to some organization that doesn't like the US, and it could not— it may not even be just Anonymous, it could be anybody, and they could come in and use that malware to attack our system. Is our system safe enough? Is our electrical system safe enough, do you think, against these kinds of cyber assaults?
Well, there are certainly flaws in the system that security professionals are looking at every single day. They have been gearing up for this for quite a long time. And the chance of the internet as a whole and/or the power grid going down is slim. But of course, as time goes on and groups like Anonymous and nations that we're not in agreement with and cyberterrorists get better at their technology, the good guys, the white hats, also have to continually respond. All right. So—
Yeah, Robert, so where do you see the flaws? I don't mean to interrupt, because I think the viewer out there, when they heard you say there are flaws in the system, they may have sat up and said, wait a second, where are the flaws and what cities, what areas of the country could be under threat? Where are the flaws?
Well, so there are vulnerabilities in the system that are known, and I'm not going to discuss those with the public at this time. But those flaws are being engaged, they're being taken care of, they're always being worked on. Security is a process. It's an ongoing journey, and they're continually working on making sure that those systems are secure. Certainly there are issues regarding social engineering, that people can be conned. There are controls that are connected to the internet that could be— that are vulnerable at some given point in time with certain types of hacks. But it's not like, you know, tomorrow all the power is going to go down and, you know, we're all going to be in the dark.
But, you know, quickly, Robert, final point. I mean, China and Russia has their cyber spies reportedly have been found to be snooping around in our electrical grid. Is that a report that should be taken seriously, and are you concerned about that?
Any report involving anyone ever snooping around in our pipeline—
But is that a true report about China and Russia?
I'm not exactly sure about Russia. I've certainly heard that China has been snooping around, but when you define China, are you talking about, you know, some kids in someone's basement, or is it state-sponsored hacks?
You're the expert, you tell us.
Well, the US government is aware of numerous attempts on our critical infrastructures. They're monitoring this all day, every single day, and whether they're going to disclose the details of those hacks to the public is a different story.
Okay, Robert Siciliano, cybersecurity expert, thank you so much for your time, sir. We really appreciate you coming on the show. Next
